Identifier: HUNGER-DOHA-14-01-1

​

Respondent: Heorhii Dmytrovych Chernev
Year of Birth: 1933
Place of Residence during the 1946–1947 Famine: Kotlovyna village, Reni District
Interview Date: 26 October 2008

​

Interview Transcript:

​

In 1946–1947, drought destroyed everything. At the same time, collectivization was taking place in the village. People had everything taken away from them without their consent: horses, cows, wheat, everything. People began dying of hunger by the dozens. The dead were collected on horse-drawn carts. Many people disappeared; no one asked about them or looked for them.

Because of the severe frost, it was impossible to dig graves. The bodies of the dead were gathered into piles and later buried in mass graves. There are mass graves in the village cemetery. These two mass graves are a symbol of the grief of the people of Kotlovyna.

​

Identifier: HUNGER-OH-14-01-2

​

Respondent: Savelii Petrovych Chakyr
Year of Birth: 1938
Place of Residence during the 1946–1947 Famine: Kotlovyna village, Reni District
Interview Date: 26 October 2008

​

Interview Transcript:

​

It is rightly said that war has no woman's face. It brings nothing but grief and destruction. Although the Gagauz did not fight on the front lines of the Great Patriotic War, its consequences have remained in the memory of the villagers and will likely continue to do so for generations, especially the famine of 1947. In my opinion, people did not die simply because of the war. Rather, it was the taxation system of that period, or the way it was distorted and enforced by local authorities, that contributed to the deaths of thousands.

The winter of 1947 was severe. Snowdrifts buried houses up to their roofs. There was no electricity, and it was impossible to obtain fuel. The village was trapped in snow. Adult men had been mobilized into the labor army and sent to restore mines and factories in the Donbas and the Urals. Young men had been sent to factory and vocational training schools. Only women, elderly people, and children remained in the village, and most of them were doomed to perish.

Food supplies were exhausted. It was impossible to buy or barter for anything. Those who tried often became trapped in the deep snow and died from cold and hunger. In my own family alone, two people died: my 45-year-old father and my 13-year-old brother.

Identifier: HUNGER-OH-14-01-3

​

Respondent: Opanas Mykhailovych Krystyn
Year of Birth: 1924
Place of Residence during the 1946–1947 Famine: Kotlovyna village, Reni District
Interview Date: 26 October 2008

​

Interview Transcript:

 

During the famine, I transported the dead on a sled. Some were already dead, others were only half alive. I took them to the cemetery and threw them into the communal burial pit. My heart broke whenever I heard the groans of those who were still alive.

At that time, there were several horse-drawn carts in the village that went from street to street collecting the dead. To avoid returning to the same street again, they also took those who still showed signs of life but were considered beyond saving.

At the entrance to the cemetery there were two large pits where the bodies were placed, lightly covered with earth, layer upon layer. These graves are still known today as the "communal burial pits."

In 1938, more than 5,000 people lived in Kotlovyna. By 1948, only about 2,000 remained. The number would have been much lower had it not been for Vasyl Panteleimonovych Borokhovych, who was born on 2 September 1921 in the village of Velyki Sorochyntsi, Myrhorod District, Poltava Region. Together with his family, he had survived the famine of 1932–1933.

After graduating from the Velyki Sorochyntsi Teachers' Training College, he was assigned to Kotlovyna in Bessarabia, where he drew upon his family's experience of surviving famine. He organized groups of children to catch ground squirrels in the fields. The animals were skinned, boiled, and used to feed the children. To persuade people that the meat was safe to eat, he ate the first ground squirrel himself.

Every morning, together with representatives of the local authorities, they went from house to house to identify those who had died. The dead usually lay naked because the living had taken their clothes to wear themselves or had bartered them for bread. The bodies were wrapped in reed mats and loaded onto high-sided carts.

At the village school, Vasyl Panteleimonovych organized a public canteen where soup and bread rations were distributed.

Identifier: HUNGER-DOHA-14-01-4

​

Respondent: Opanas Heorhiiovych Salabash
Year of Birth: 1929
Place of Residence during the 1946–1947 Famine: Kotlovyna village, Reni District
Interview Date: 26 October 2008

​

Interview Transcript:

​

I began school in 1936, and in 1944 I completed seven grades at the Romanian school. In 1941, the long four-year war began. I was fifteen years old at the time. In 1944, Soviet rule was established. In December of that same year, all the men in the village between the ages of eighteen and forty-five were mobilized into the labor army and sent to work in the mines. Only children, women, and elderly people remained in Kotlovyna.

Collectivization began, and collective farms were established. The first collective farm in our village was created in 1945, and the second followed in 1946–1947. A ration-card system for food distribution was introduced. Bread was distributed in rations of 300, 400, or 700 grams, depending on the category of recipient.

In 1947, the famine began. People died day and night, entire families at a time. I was eighteen years old then, and I vividly remember the horrors of those days. Horse-drawn carts moved through the silent streets of the half-dead village, transporting the dead to the "communal burial pit," a massive trench about twenty meters long and four to five meters wide. I myself held the reins of one of those carts.

For many people, the only way to survive was to flee. I doubt that I would have survived had I not gone to the town of Reni, where my cousin, Kostiantyn Petrovych Salabash, took me in and saved my life.